Are you afraid of the phone?

In an ideal world, all your visitors find what they’re looking for on your site all the time. They order online and don’t cause you any trouble. They don’t send you any pesky emails and they certainly do not want to call you on the phone.

But this isn’t an ideal world. This is the real world, where people have questions and want to call you. So let them.

‘It’s cheaper if they don’t call us’

Obviously it’s cheaper for your company if people just use your website instead of calling you on the phone.

But sometimes people have questions they prefer to ask by phone. Don’t make that unnecessarily hard.

If people want to call you, they will call you

Some companies are so afraid of phonecalls from customers or potential customers that they hide their phone number or simply don’t put it on their website.

Unless you’ve got an unlisted secret number people can’t look up in the Yellow Pages, I wouldn’t do that.

People who want to call you will call you. Whether you like it or not.

If you force people to go to great lengths to find your phone number, they generally won’t be very friendly when they finally get you on the phone.

Or worse, if they can’t find your number, they simply won’t buy your product. Not on your website and not in the shop.

You’ve annoyed them. Why should they give you their money?

Put your phone number on your contact page

If people want to call you, they’ll look for a link ‘Contact’ or ‘Contact us’. Because that’s where they expect to find your phone number. So put it there.

Some companies put their contact details, including their phone number, in the footer of every page. That’s great, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put it on the ‘Contact’ page anymore. Not everybody looks to the footer for contact information.

Don’t hide your phone number below the page fold on the contact page. And definitely don’t put it underneath a form. A lot of people will see the form and simply assume that’s all there is. They won’t scroll down and they won’t see your phone number.

Put your phone number on other pages too

If you don’t suffer from phone phobia, it’s probably a good idea to put your phone number on other pages besides the contact page as well.

A lot of people use the web to look up information. But when it comes to the final decision, they prefer to use the phone. To ask that final question or to place the order. ‘Just to be on the safe side.’

Make sure that’s easy. Put your phone number on those crucial pages.